Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The Stupendous Six

The Jawa Report has been closely following the arrest of six terror suspects in London, who are definitely less musical than the Beatles. The BBC report says:

Six men have been arrested on suspicion of incitement offences by anti-terror officers from the Metropolitan Police. They include Abu Izzadeen, also known as Omar Brooks, who made headlines when he heckled Home Secretary John Reid at an event last year.

Five arrests took place in London and the sixth in Luton, Bedfordshire. Scotland Yard said the arrests related to allegations of inciting others to commit acts of terrorism abroad and fund-raising for terrorists.

Here are videos showing two of the suspects in preaching. Here is Abu Muwaheed in a video that could be titled: "Teach Your Children Well", with apologies to Crosby, Stills and Nash.

Here's another video of Trevor Brooks, now a Muslim convert known as Abu Izzadeen, making fun of a hostage who was pleading for his life, scorning him as a coward. This video might be titled "Six Million Funerals and a Wedding".

Too bad that for all their bluster and tough-guy talk they did not seem too eager to resist the British policemen who came to arrest them. But since we are on the subject of religion and how it informs our life, and having listened to these two imams, it's only fair to hear counterpoint from another point of view. Here's Ronald Reagan on the subject of life and children; on what true courage means. It is the power to live, aflame not with explosive, but with love. (The Reagan video may contain a spurious de Tocqueville quote, as pointed out by Pascal Fervor.)

14 Comments:

re: Too bad that for all their bluster and tough-guy talk they did not seem too eager to resist the British policemen who came to arrest them.

Yes, one doesn't hear often of imams being killed in battle, other than incidentally. By incidentally by way of example, I mean being caught in a weaponized mosque on those rare occasions when fire can be brought to bear. It is possible I suppose that Muslim elites do not wish to appear bossy by pushing to the head of the jihad line. Yeah, that’s the ticket: Muslim egalitarianism.

OT - Turkey

This afternoon I learned from someone with orders to Turkey in July that the Air Force is authorizing unrestricted dependent assignments there. "Is it safe?" Who knows, but the Air Force is satisfied.

One of the more interesting concepts presented in these videos is the contrast between the ideas of "submission" and "freedom". The first imam speaks of a "business transaction" where "we give Allah our life" and "he give us Paradise" as a reward for killing the infidel; the second speaks of life as if it were a hateful thing to be cast away; just slightly less odious than the kuffar. Reagan in contrast sees faith as empowering life and sanctifying the world. Two world views, each diametrically opposed. The attraction of the imams is their promise of power, since one can doubt whether the world itself withstand such fearless hate.

Abu Izzadeen, despite his supposed contempt for the world, obviously relishes his power over men, the ability to intimidate. He twits the journalists in attendance, openly threatening to target them; he boasts how those who love life must yield before those who long for death, though what benefit the "martyrs" derive for power upon earth is not logically apparent, unless they can watch the news on TV from hell.

The theology of al-Qaeda is so much more fascinating than Nazism, which was a dull muddle. Hitler never so self-consciously compared himself to Death personified as these two imams whose message has been refined to a gleaming edge. I wonder what the journalists were thinking as they listened to this performance? Was it outrage? Fear? Admiration? People wonder today how Hitler could have overawed the best educated country in Europe with his primitive message of hate. Maybe that wasn't the hard part at all. It was when Hitler attacked the simpletons, the men at home with the rhythms of natural life that his problems began. That will be Izadeen's problem. In the end men will fight, not with their minds, but with their hearts; not over any dogma for any article in the Koran, but in defense of the family, the stove and the dog. Life wants to live. Izadeen can go hang.

Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain visited Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) and conveyed to its two leaders that the Pakistani government has accepted all of Lal Masjid’s demands, including the implementation of Sharia Law in Pakistan. It is another example of the Musharraf government’s inability to contain the pro-Taliban and pro-al-Qaeda Islamist movement inside Pakistan. While ceding real estate to the Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance through the various ‘peace accords’ that handed terrorists South Waziristan, North Waziristan and Bajour agencies is troubling in its own right, this latest set of concessions is more troubling still.Several more links in the piece.

Robert Kagan, in his classic study of American history A Dangerous Nation, argues that America is the most destabilizing nation in the world partly because its concept of liberty is inseparable from its idea of life. To live is to prosper, to think and to dream. To be all that you can be.

In consequence the idea of America creates a kind of voracity for territory, wealth, knowledge and controversy. It is the restless nation, fundamentally at odds with those who demand that it "submit". Reagan's theology reflects this. God guides, but men decide. God and man talk constantly and then, in a manner of speaking, put things to a vote.

In its quiet way Ronald Reagan's message is fully as dangerous as that of these imams. In that sense the clash we are watching now was inevitable. There is not room enough on the planet for the words "freedom" and "submission" to fly their flags in Washington. Pelosi and Reid may withdraw ever so far as they wish but it will never quite be far enough. That is the condition in which we are trapped.

British scientists are asking whether robots should be granted "human rights".

The report, issued by the office of science and innovation, said: "If artificial intelligence is achieved and widely deployed, calls may be made for human rights to be extended to robots."

Human hatreds are so intractable that it's conceivable that robots will effectively get "human rights" ahead of certain classes of people. Imagine a future where a guy like Izzadeen has a domestic robot equipped with artificial intelligence who he eventually grows fond of. Does that robot have more or fewer "human rights" than a Jew? It sounds like an absurd question, but I think we will be surprised at the answer. For example, I have only recently learned that cucumbers and tomatoes are regarded as being of opposite gender by Islamic fundamentalists and cannot be placed side-by-side. No, really.

If Europe rules that robots have human rights then a clever lawyer will soon argue that one cannot interrogate computing equipment of a certain kind without violating it's fundamental rights.

It may be more than a bit diminishing to your point that you used a Reagan excerpt with him ending a string of uplifting quotes with one inaccurately attributed to Tocqueville.

The idea expressed in the quote may be a good one; it may even be accurate; and I believe it is very good that Reagan endorsed it. But as disclosed in the link, THE TOCQUEVILLE FRAUD, Toqueville never said it.

An article reprinted from the Economist describes efforts to create an "artificial conscience" in order (in the example given) to avoid illegal strikes against al-Qaeda.

Ronald Arkin of the Georgia Institute of Technology is developing a set of rules of engagement for battlefield robots to ensure that their use of lethal force follows the rules of ethics.

In other words, he is trying to create an artificial conscience.

Arkin believes there is another reason for putting robots into battle. They have the potential to act more humanely than people.

The dream of hard-wiring the Geneva Convention into warfighting will at last become achievable. But imagine if you will the following situation: you have a suspect running towards a bus of school children with a perceived 50% probability of being a suicide bomber. What does the Geneva Convention say? Shoot or don't shoot?

The problem with imagining that ethics can be programmed into a machine assumes the society which created it knows what right and wrong are. That's a harder problem than it first appears.

How you ended your first comment on this thread I find heartening Wretchard.

You know it is my long held opinion that too many well-healed people who freely spend to spread their influence have made a religion of Malthusianism and have been actively indoctrinating it.

How much better for them that they can both hide their hatred of the common man and assuage occasionally troubled consciences with an ubermenschian, morals trampling concern for the planet?

It is because of this flat out consistency between their postmodernist religion and their policy prescription (give up!) that the Left can be safely charged to be in league with these other haters of life.

So this is why I say those who love life may find themselves battling with forces both in front of them and behind them.

Yes, life will win out in the end. But how much blood will be spilt in the process?

Yes, its been 1,400 years for Islam, and yes, it is easy to see Muslim trouble-making ALL AROUND the world, and in so doing begin to think of Islam as a monolithic, unified reality, looming over us much like the USSR was an immovable evil, about to subjugate us all...

But such assessments ignore the impact on Islam of the Coming of the Glory of God, Baha'u'llah. The long-promised Mahdi of Islamic Scripture, He constitutes a Deus ex machina of truly transformational dimensions!

He came at the time and with a Message which both fulfilled Islamic prophecies and obviated Islam. He it is Whose coming, foretold in Christian Scripture, has been so longingly awaited by Christians, obedient to the Word and the Holy Spirit.

Every day increases the probability that news of His Coming will seep past the barriers erected by clergy, intent on scoffing and denying that our Lord has come again! The imams and mullahs, clergy everywhere, are clinging with all their personal power TO personal power, and will be swept away by the POWER of God's Holy Messenger, the Lord of Hosts:

"From two ranks amongst mankind have I seized power... the kingly caste and ecclesiastics.""I have given power to the people."

One never knows how one will behave when grave danger is faced. The Imam mocks the Japanese soldier wimpering and begging - many Palestinian militant leaders respond to the arrival of Israeli troops by stripping down to their underware and heading out, hands up (as in the case of Marwan Bargouti in April 2002 - fellow prisoners apparently mocking him mercilessly afterwards)

In the early going in Iraq, a captured Italian soldier, as his captors moved to be-head him, pulled off his hood and screamed: "Vi faccio vedere come sa morire un Italiano" - Now watch how an Italian dies!